Soap and Other Random Experiments

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Tag Archives: Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge

Time does fly by doesn’t it! I just finished my masters and final exams last month (yay!!!) so now I have some time to experiment with soap art. This month’s challenge was to do a soap design using an Ebru (paper marbling) technique. Here is my color palette after mixing the black, yellow, orange, green and dark pink micas.

My inspiration was the Blackhawk feathers. My husband has been bugging me for several weeks about making a Blackhawks soap so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to give it a go.

Here is the final product after it was just poured. I tried to literally copy the feathers but it looked lame so I just kept adding more soap and freehanded the design for a more abstract feather look. It is scented with Energy orange fragrance. This looks more like autumn leaves than feathers to me but I am happy with the result. It is a bit early for Fall but it is my favorite time of the year!

Here is the soap a few hours later. I used goat’s milk, mango butter, olive, palm and coconut oils in the soap formulation. The bottom half of the soap is black. I used yellow, orange, green and dark pink micas for the top swirly design.

Thanks Amy for another fun challenge! I look forward to seeing the other designs. It should be interesting to cut this in a few days. The original Blackhawks feather design is buried somewhere under there. 😀

I realize that it has been awhile since my last post. I have been overwhelmed with grad school and farmers market commitments so I missed a few of the soap challenges. This month’s challenge was to do a spoon swirl soap and I just barely squeezed this in my crazy schedule of final exams, winter markets and holiday parties.

It helped that I had enough pre-mixed oils leftover for a small batch of soap (Yay for masterbatching!). I used mango butter, olive, coconut, palm and castor oil for the base formula. The soap batch was scented with lavender and geranium essential oils. I used violet, yellow and light green micas to color the soap.

Here is the soap loaf after it was poured and swirled with a spoon. I also did a few mica swirls on the top of the loaf.

Here is the soap after it was cut 24 hours later. I poured the batch at a thicker viscosity than I was used to based on Amy’s advice. I was concerned about air pockets but this soap design came out really well. I now want to experiment with this technique a bit more for future batches.

Thanks Amy for another fun challenge! It was great to get back into soap design again. I look forward to seeing the other spoon swirl soaps! 🙂

Color is one of my favorite things to experiment with and I was excited to see that Amy was doing a color challenge this month. There were two color palettes to choose from and I chose the Mineral Autumn palette below.

Mineral Autumn Color Palette (Source: Design Seeds)

I decided to do a side-by-side challenge between 2 sets of colorants: oxide pigments vs. natural colorants (spices/botanicals/clays). For the pigments, I used burgundy oxide, brick oxide, black oxide, and yellow oxide. For the natural colorants, I used paprika mixed with red clay, madder root, activated charcoal, and yellow clay. Below are the colors after mixing. Some colors are similar, others – not so much.

This soap recipe used coconut, canola, palm and castor oils. In addition to the 8 colorants, I used the uncolored soap for the last neutral color in the palette.

I wanted to see the differences between the 2 color sets so I divided a slab mold in half and did a design with the oxides on one side and another design with the natural colorants on the other side. I mixed and poured the oxide colored soap first so the soap emulsion was very fluid. I then mixed and poured the natural colors on the bottom half of the mold. The second set of soap colors was considerably thicker but still pourable. Below is a picture of the soap after it was just poured. Interesting how light the paprika, madder root and clays look. I was curious to see what the colors would look like after gel phase. I covered and insulated the soap to keep it warm and let it go though gel phase.

Color Challenge Soap Just Poured

Wow – what a difference after 24 hours! The madder root morphed to a dark red color and the yellow clay and paprika/red clay sections look richer in color too. The oxide colored soap looked like the initial pour but had a little ash on top. I notice I tend to get more ash when the soap mixture is poured very thin. I am happy though that the batter was fluid enough to get workable design so that is the trade-off. 😉

Color Challenge Soap After Gel Phase (24 hours)

The soap was still very soft today so I will let the batch harden for a few days before cutting the bars.

Thanks Amy for another fun challenge! It was interesting to experiment with various colorants and it took a few trials to match the color palette sample. I may try the other (summer) palette someday. I look forward to seeing the other color challenge soaps! 🙂

I just cut this neon swirl soap today and I am so pleased with how it came out!

I used the hanger swirl technique which is also this month’s soap challenge technique. I have been off-line lately (busy with school, travel and family issues) and I was looking to get back into experimenting with soap design. I was also excited to play with my new hanger tool from Michelle at the Great Soap Shop on Etsy.

I used a Bastille recipe (80% olive oil and 20% coconut oil) with 4 different neon pigments. The soap was scented with a sweet orange fragrance.

I did another hanger swirl soap before this one but was underwhelmed with the results. This time, I tried a different variation – I pulled the hanger vertically up and down the soap after pouring the 4 colors. I then did a Taiwan swirl on the top. Here is the soap after it was just poured into the mold.

Here is the soap after it was cut. I love how each bar has a different design. Some soaps are more yellow and while others are more magenta or blue.

Thanks Amy for another fun challenge! I look forward to seeing the other hanger swirl designs. 🙂

It’s February and time for another soap challenge! Amy’s challenge for this month was to create an embedded soap design. This was challenging for me because a) you have to use freshly made cold process soap in the design (no melt & pour!) and b) I have never worked with embeds in CP soap before. I thought that the challenge was going to be easier than the other challenges but it was actually more work than I thought. I was making dozens of mini soap batches for the last few weeks!

At first, I had no idea what I was going to do for the design. I decided to just start making the embeds and let them tell me what they wanted to be. I mixed up 11 different colors so I would have a wide palette to work with.

I then made the embed soap base and used practically every small mold I could find. The soap base was made with goat milk, coconut, olive, palm, and castor oils.

Making the embeds

After using all my small soap molds, I had to be creative about finding more embed molds. Clean milk cartons and food containers make great soap molds! Note: I did not use the easter egg soaps in my final embed designs. The egg-shaped soaps are living in a plastic container to someday become an Easter themed soap.

More embed molds!

I made the final embedded soaps last Sunday. These were two batches of goat milk soap, both scented with lemongrass essential oil.

The scary thing about making these soaps was that I had no idea how they were going to turn out. I kept looking, sniffing and poking at the soap logs during the week, praying that they were not going to be too hideous for the challenge.

I just cut the logs today because the soaps were too soft to cut initially. My first embed soap batch is below. It is pretty, but I wish it had a bit more contrast and texture.

I was happier with the second embed soap batch. I was going for an abstract mosaic landscape design.

You can’t easily see this from the pictures but there are actually three different brown colored pigments used for the mountain embed pieces. I probably should have lightened or darkened the pigments to create more contrast.

I recently started dabbling in watercolor painting and there are many similarities between watercolor painting and soapmaking design. One key thing is that you have to work fast! Another thing is that to really know how the colors are going to turn out, you need to blend colors in advance and do test trials. So this challenge was essentially one big test trial for me to learn how various colored pigments look in soap.

I still have a lot of small embeds left. More embed soap fun is in my future. 🙂 Thanks Amy for another fun challenge. Good luck to everyone doing the challenge! I am looking forward to seeing all the soaps and getting inspired!

I am always interested in trying new techniques so after seeing a few blog posts about Amy’s Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge, I decided to join this month’s challenge. This month, we had to use the column pour technique in a soap design.

This was my first time trying this technique and I may have been a bit over-ambitious for my first attempt.

Two weeks ago, I was in Las Vegas walking through the Bellagio and I saw this display for the Cirque Du Soleil “O” show.

“Wow! These are really cool colors to use in a soap design.” I thought.

I also spotted this poster of the Cirque Du Soleil “O” Zebra characters in a Bellagio gift shop. I became even more excited and wanted to try to mirror the stripes of the Zebras in a soap design.

Cirque-Du-Soleil O: The Zebras

I was so inspired by the idea that I bought a new slab mold just for the trial. I love this slab mold because all the side panels can be disassembled for easy soap removal.

For the columns, I used these wooden beads shaped like a star and block. I taped sections together and wrapped them in plastic wrap.

Blocks and Slab Mold for Column Pour Challenge

Big plans, big dreams………. foiled by heavy trace in 3 out of the 5 colors. 😉

For the soap base, I used slow-moving olive, almond and canola oils along with palm, coconut and palm kernel oils. For the design, I used 5 different colors: yellow oxide, ultramarine blue, ultramarine violet, black oxide and white (titanium dioxide). After mixing in the colorants, I added citrus-smelling “Energy” fragrance oil to the soap mixtures.

The white and violet mixtures were at light trace and flowed easily on the blocks. However, the black, yellow and blue soap mixtures were very viscous and hard to pour on the blocks. I just managed to get all the soap poured in the mold before it became very thick and gloppy.

Mr. Ecoviolet was my photographer for the occasion and after seeing my dismay wanted to help. “OK” I told him. “Take these chopsticks and just make radial lines from where I took out the blocks”.

He nodded in understanding and proceeded to make huge random zigzags and swirls with the chopsticks. Argh!!! I probably should have been more specific about what I meant by “radial lines”.

I did go back and draw lines radiating from where the blocks where in the soap and this is what we ended up with. It doesn’t look like a typical column pour soap but I still think it looks pretty good.

Soap after pour

The colors became more vibrant as the soap went through gel stage. Here is the soap after 4 hours of cure time.

Column pour soap after 4 hours

After 24 hours, the soap was still very soft. It was very helpful to have a mold with removable panels. Lining the mold with freezer paper also helped with soap removal. I had to be extra careful because it was easy to dent the soap.

Column pour soap out of mold after 24 hours

All lined up and ready for cure!

Column pour soap ready for curing rack!

Not bad-looking for my first column pour. I want to try the column pour technique again and execute my original vision. I was probably just too slow in getting things mixed, staged and ready to go.

I am still happy with the outcome and the scent is amazing. I also can’t wait to see the other challenge participant soaps out there!